Making Cities ‘Livable’

Is your neighborhood livable? The U.S. Department of Transportation says it wants to create livable communities, but doesn’t exactly define the phrase. Though in a USDOT report, livable is probably a technical term, with a different definition than laypeople might assume. The Infrastructurist is on the case, though, and has this:

Always ready to shed light on vague transportation language, Secretary Ray LaHood came forward to clarify the term as follows: “Livability,” he said, “means being able to take your kids to school, go to work, see a doctor, drop by the grocery or post office, go out to dinner and a movie, and play with your kids in a park, all without having to get in your car.”

So what we’re talking about here is car-less (or “extreme car-light”) living in dense urban neighborhoods. Which, given the gradual movement towards urban environments, isn’t a pipe dream. But it does present a pretty drastic change to millions of Americans who have come to associate “freedom” and a high quality of life with suburban communities, cul-de-sacs, and above all, cars. As for how the administration plans to achieve this urban-based vision of “livability,” the Plan states the DOT will:

• Establish an office within the Office of the Secretary to promote coordination of livability and sustainability in Federal infrastructure policy;
• Give communities the tools and technical assistance they need so that they can develop the capacity to assess their transportation systems, plan for needed improvements, and integrate transportation and other community needs;
• Work through the Partnership for Sustainable Communities to develop broad, universal performance measures that can be used to track livability across the Nation as well as performance measures that capture local circumstances; and
• Advocate for more robust State and local planning efforts, create incentives for investments that demonstrate the greatest enhancement of community livability based on performance measures, and focus transportation spending in a way that supports and capitalizes on other infrastructure investment, both public and private.

All of which seems like a fancy way of saying, “We need more public transportation, but we’re not entirely sure how to build it.”

2 comments

Just requiring that parking lots be located behind the commercial buildings would go a long way. This development pattern costs about the same, would support other car-free modes of transportation and could be adapted to have apartments/offices at the back of the parking lot if we ever do switch from personal vehicle’s in large numbers. Too often we spend valuable time advocating ideas that either people are not ready for or are not politically viable. Relocating parking lots as a zoning requirement is attainable.

Livable design is simply the art of traditional (pre-1950) neighborhood design. It is not car hostile, but it also is not car-worship.

For an example of livability done pretty well, mosey down to the all-new Clay Street between Muhammad Ali and Jefferson Streets. Kids are playing in the streets. Traffic is manageable. People living there own plenty of cars, and use them, they just don’t turn their main street into a super-highway.

Two blocks away, on Jackson Street, you can find an example of livability FAIL – what I call car worship. Just like Clay, it is a 2 lane street. There are flashing lights begging drivers not to run over pedestrians as they scurry from one hospital to the next, but they don’t work. It’s autobahn-lite.

The difference in the desire of people to walk there is palpable. Ray LaHood deserves our full-throated support for promoting sane street designs.